


like tiny daggers up to heaven

by always_an_anxious_mess, Ecinue



Series: and if you can stay then i’ll show you the way [3]
Category: Minecraft - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Attempted manipulation, BAMF TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Protective Sam | Awesamdude, Protective TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29708895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_an_anxious_mess/pseuds/always_an_anxious_mess, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecinue/pseuds/Ecinue
Summary: Dream has gotten used to the routine in prison. He’s had exactly one visitor in the past few weeks (or had it been months?).Of all his potential visitors, though, he was not expecting this one.Not this way, at least.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: and if you can stay then i’ll show you the way [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114571
Comments: 39
Kudos: 488





	like tiny daggers up to heaven

Dream had gotten used to the routine in his cell in the prison.

Wake up when the lights turned on without warning. Eat breakfast and drink a regen potion that is either delivered by Sam, Punz, Ponk, Sapnap, or remotely via a hole in the floor that only popped up during mealtimes. Stare at the wall until lunch, where the above repeats. Stare at the wall until dinner, repeating again. Fall asleep after the lights turn off without warning. Wake up in the middle of the night to a vengeful, sadistic spirit. Tolerate the pain for about an hour after said spirit leaves. Fall back asleep. Repeat.

The isolation doesn’t bother him very much, if he was being honest. He found it ironic, found it amusing. This was his server, his world to rule, and he was stuck behind bars that he commissioned to be built.

He had become the precious thing kept in the vault. He had become Tommy, trapped in an endless cycle that he could not escape. Forced to be beaten and healed over and over and over again.

He was stronger than Tommy had been, though. You wouldn’t see him clinging to Wilbur’s shirtsleeve, begging for company.

Tommy had always been fragile, always been weak. After Dream had broken him, it only made sense to keep the boy locked away in the prison until he could secure the rest of the server under his thumb.

He’d been so close.

Or, at least, he thought he’d been close.

Oh how wrong he had been.

Dream was not the type of man who admitted when he was wrong. At least, not often. But he had been wrong. So very, incredibly, outstandingly wrong.

He had miscalculated how far the entire server would go for one annoying, clingy, broken teenage boy. How much they truly liked to pretend that they cared about him. They swooped in to save the day only because Punz, _Punz_ of _all_ people, decided he suddenly had a moral compass, decided to grow a spine.

Dream was not a bitter man. He liked to think he let things go easily, in fact. Which is why when he got out of here, he would forgive Punz for his careless mistake.

Only after Punz groveled at his feet and begged for his mercy.

Dream was awoken to the grinding of the door.

His eyes peeled open as he lay there, completely still, on his cot with its thin mattress. The door, which was more akin to a wall considering it was that large and there was no visible way to open it, groaned and panted as it gave way.

A moment after the door opened, the horribly bright lights turned on, and Dream waited silently for the telltale sound of his food being delivered via the hole in the floor.

It didn’t come.

“What, no breakfast today?” He asked, still without getting up.

“You have a visitor,” Sam replied, in the monotone of his “warden” voice. “Breakfast will be given afterwards.”

A visitor?

A proper visitor?

He hadn’t had one of those since Tubbo had shown up, demanding answers, demanding the truth. Wilbur’s nightly visits of beatings didn’t count. Before that, no one had been around. It was just him in this netherite cage, alone. 

Now that he thought about it, Wilbur hadn’t come last night.

Was Wilbur here to do it in front of an audience this time? Dream couldn’t help but find the thought amusing, and incredibly ironic.

Regardless, it peaked his interest enough to sit up and glance towards the wall/door, wondering who he’d find there.

Sam, in full netherite and armed to the teeth, as usual. Punz, also in full armor and heavily armed. But there was a third person, about the same height.

At first, Dream didn’t recognize the boy standing in front of him, leaning on a staff of sorts to keep his balance.

The boy’s hair had been cut, shaved completely except for a mop of blonde hair on the top of his head that was long enough to curl around his ears and fall into gray-blue eyes. There was a familiar scar stretched across the boy’s throat, partially covered by a dark green bandana.

Bandages covered the boy’s hands, baring only the tips of his fingers, and continuing up his forearms to end just before his elbows. He wore a white hoodie with red accents, the sleeves pushed up and bunching on his upper arms. Pale blue jeans and black work boots completed his outfit.

The boy looked so much different than Dream had seen him last, that it took him a moment to realize that this was _Tommy_.

What gave it away was the still sickly pale color of his skin, the hollowness of his cheeks that was still present weeks after his return from exile. The way his hands trembled and the way he looked unsure, confused, gripping onto the wooden staff with a death grip that surely made his bandaged knuckles turn white.

“Tommy,” Dream let an easy smile break out onto his face, eyes purposely softening as he slid off of his cot, the frame squealing in protest.

Tommy visibly flinched, staff shifting until it was in front of him and gripped with both hands instead of one, almost protectively. “Dream,” he rasped, his voice still shot to shit, it seemed, after the throat-cutting incident.

“I missed you,” Dream forced a mournful tone, tilting his head and lifting his eyebrows, basically giving Tommy a pouty face. “It’s lonely in here, with no one to visit me. I thought you would never come. I waited everyday, thinking you would visit, because that’s what friends do.”

He watched as Tommy’s breath hitched, eyes clouding over for a moment, before the boy violently shook his head as if dislodging a traitorous thought. Dream felt a soft ping of triumph, but he willed it to not show on his face.

The older blonde listened to the chains attached to his wrists and ankles rattle as he approached the wall of his cage, fingers wrapping around the netherite bars. Tommy took a few shuffling steps forward as well, but stopped just out of reach, watching Dream warily.

“Tommy I missed you so much,” Dream let a wobble seep into his voice, having to make himself seem vulnerable only pissed him off, but he was good about hiding his emotions. “Please. We’re friends, right? You never came to visit me... but we’re still friends. It’s okay, I forgive you. I still care about you, you’re not in trouble. I never hurt you before, did I?”

Tommy still seemed slightly unsure, but his gaze was more unfocused, like it often was when Dream did this. The teen took a few more steps forward, now within reach of the bars.

“C’mere Toms,” Dream murmured, stretching out his hands and reaching between the bars the best he could with his chains. “C’mere, it’s okay.”

That’s all it took.

Tommy’s eyes glazed over completely, and he practically fell against the netherite that separated them, wooden staff clattering to the floor.

Dream wrapped his hands around the boy, one hand cradling the back of Tommy’s head and neck and the other resting between his shoulder blades.

“There you go,” Dream cooed, scratching his nails lightly over the skin of Tommy’s neck comfortingly. The teen whimpered, breath hitching again as he practically leaned into the touch. “There you go Toms. I missed you.”

He felt Tommy shakily wrap his own arms around Dream, one gripping the back of his turtleneck tightly, and the other coming upwards, close to the back of his head.

Dream didn’t think anything of it.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy sounded like he was on the brink of crying. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I should’ve never— never—”

“It’s alright Toms,” Dream crooned softly. Maybe he was going a bit overkill with the nickname that Wilbur often called Tommy, but it was working. “You can make it up to me, by getting me out of here. And then we’ll run off together, not to Logstedshire, but to someplace new. Some place exciting. Doesn’t that sound fun? And no one will ever hurt either of us again.”

Tommy whined, high in his throat, and Dream shushed him quietly, like a parent hushing their crying infant.

Then, the feeling of cool metal on the back of his neck. A jerk that sent his head forward and clanging into the unforgiving netherite bars. The faint taste of blood in his mouth and the feeling of something penetrating his skin before the world went dark just as quickly.

Dream woke with a gasp, followed by a cough, eyes snapping open to find he was in his iron cot, staring up at the netherite bars. The metallic taste of blood was in his mouth, in his throat, but the liquid did not fill either place.

There was a sharp pain in the place where his neck met his skull, radiating upwards at an angle that made his brain throb. His temple pulsed with the duller sensation of having cracked it on unyielding netherite.

His hand found the back of his neck as his chest heaved, eyes blown open wide with shock.

The skin there felt different, rougher, a different texture than before. The short hairs that had been there, giving way into his blonde locks, was gone, leaving a small bald patch at the nape of his neck.

He sat bolt upright and forced himself into a standing position, chains clattering loudly. His whole body groaned in protest, all stiff joints and aching muscles and exhausted limbs.

All telltale signs of a respawn. Something he’d only ever gone through once before.

He felt it in his bones. A deep, resonating feeling that didn’t go away. He only had one life left, now. He knew it instinctively.

Dream snapped his gaze to Tommy, rage fueling him and filling every crevice and crack, spilling out over the edges and most likely showing on his face.

“What did you _do_?” He spat venomously.

Tommy didn’t even fucking blink, staring at him with sharp, clear blue-gray eyes.There was no fog to them at all, no haze covering dull irises. These eyes were sharp, calculating.

_Triumphant._

Gone was the soft, unsure look. Gone were the clouded eyes and slumped shoulders. They were replaced by narrowed eyes, an emotionless expression, and straight posture.

Blood was splattered on his hand and stained the blade of a tiny diamond dagger, small enough to be concealed by the teen’s palm. His staff had been reclaimed, once again being leaned on just as heavily as before.

Tommy seemed to be unconsciously fiddling with the bloodstained dagger, thumb running over the blade and slipping in the rust colored liquid.

That was _Dream’s_ blood.

The aching in the back of his head and neck... Tommy must have shoved that tiny blade with just enough force to break through Dream’s skull, penetrating his brain stem. That was the only plausible conclusion to how he’d died so quickly and without noticing, with that small of a dagger.

He’d been dead before he even could realize he’d been stabbed.

“You... you _killed_ me,” Dream forced himself to throw in betrayal in his voice, letting it seep into his expression. “Tommy... we were friends! You killed me! How could you?”

Tommy tilted his head, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a smirk. “Shut up,” the teen croaked, a strength to his voice despite the hoarseness.

Dream blanched, not expecting that response. “What?”

“I said,” Tommy spun his dagger in his hand and raised it up to examine the blade, flicking his gaze between the blood that stained it and Dream. “Shut. Up.”

The older blonde blinked dumbly, throughly stunned and unsure of how to respond.

Tommy’s eyes were _clear_. There was no cloudyness in his gaze. Tommy had just killed him, and he was talking back? It’d been mere weeks since he’d come back from exile, how had the teen bounced back so quickly?

“I may not remember a lot of things,” Tommy drawled. “But I remember what you did to me, and I remember enough of it to know that what you were doing was wrong. And you tried to do it again, just now.”

“I— of course I didn’t,” Dream said defensively, immediately switching to what he knew in this strange situation. “Tommy, what are you talking about? I haven’t done anything to you.

Tommy scoffed, a noise that Dream hadn’t heard from the teen since before his exile. “Let’s make this conversation a lot easier in agreeing not to lie to each other,” the younger blonde suggested, with a cold edge to his tone. “Because the both of us know that everything you’ve said in the past few minutesis one big fat pile of dog shit.”

Dream gritted his teeth, bristling and tending his shoulders. This was not the same Tommy he had last seen through these very bars, breaking down and having to be carried out by “big brother Technoblade”.

“Yes, I think that would save time,” the older blonde replied, letting his facade drop and his features slide into the barely contained rage that he was feeling. His hands balled up into fists, and the atmosphere in the room became thick with tension, almost palpable.

Tommy bared his teeth in a mimicry of a smile, but it was anything but genuine. It was bitter, filled with hatred and anger and was so _strange_ to see on this boy. This boy who was pale, thin, this boy that Dream vividly remembered begging for his forgiveness for the slightest inconvenience. This boy that cowered at his feet, fell limp underneath Dream’s hands on multiple occasions.

“Now you’re getting it,” Tommy’s voice is smooth, conniving, like a snake. His eyes glitter dangerously as he stares at Dream like a hungry predator stares at prey. “You only have one life now.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement. Dream answers anyway. “Yes.”

“Who took your first, I wonder?” Tommy mused, half asking and half not. When Dream doesn’t answer this inquiry, the teen continues. “Was it Techno, striking you down because he’s the only one that ever beat you in a fight? Was it Phil, stripping you of your first life as revenge to what you planned to put his son through, what you had put his son through? Was it Wilbur, in one of his nightly torture sessions as vengeance for what you did to his baby brother?”

Tommy’s voice was high, mocking. Dream doesn’t reply, meeting the boy’s predatory gaze unflinchingly. Green meets blue-gray, more color in those irises than the older blonde had seen the last time the teen was here.

“No, it wasn’t them,” Tommy’s grin went wider. “It was Tubbo, wasn’t it?”

“Why are you asking me this if you already know the answer?”

Tommy continued as if Dream hadn’t spoken. “Tubbo, of all people, took your last life?” the teen said patronizingly. “The “sidekick”? The “supporting cast”? Dear, sweet Tubbo? I thought he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“We agreed not to lie,” Dream retorted. Because it was a lie. It had to be a lie. There’s no way Tommy had no idea what Tubbo was capable of, not when they had been so close for so long.

“Guilty as charged,” Tommy admitted without hesitation or regret. “I had to get one in, at least. As repayment for all the times you lied to me.”

“So... what?” Dream inched forward, wrapping his hands around the bars of his cell. “A few weeks go by and suddenly you’re the great TommyInnit again? Here to get revenge on me for what I did to you? I’m truly impressed that you bounced back so quickly.”

“It’s been six months,” Tommy replied smoothly, his gaze unflinching. They were inches from each other, now, separated only by the bars. Dream could reach out and squeeze the life out of the teen’s throat without having to strain his grip. “And no.”

“No?”

“No,” the boy repeated. “No, I am not “TommyInnit”. You destroyed “TommyInnit”. I might’ve been him once, but I’m not anymore, and I won’t be again. You destroyed him, he’s gone, he’s not coming back.”

The nonchalant tone of the reply made Dream blanch, brows furrowing as Tommy narrowed his eyes at him.

“I’m just Tommy. Philza’s son, Technoblade and Wilbur Soot’s brother. Tubbo’s best friend. That’s enough for me,” Tommy shrugged. “And to your other question, also, no.”

“What do you mean no?”

“No, as in I’m not here to get revenge on you.”

“What are you here for then? Closure? To kill me once so now we’re on the same playing field?”

Tommy tilted his head, baring his teeth at Dream. “I’m not here for revenge.”

“Then what do you _want_?” Dream demanded. “Why are you here? What was the point in coming?”

“Simple,” Tommy replied, with a shrug, his smile never faltering. “ _Justice_.”

“Justice,” Dream deadpanned. “Is another word for revenge.”

“Perhaps, but not to me,” Tommy looked at Dream pointedly. “Tubbo took your first life as justice for what you did to me. Wilbur “plays” with you nightly as justice for what you did to me. You being in here in the first place is justice for what you did to me. With them getting justice for me, I have no need for revenge.”

Dream understood a bit more now. Tommy was associating justice as when you repaid wrongdoings that were done to others, while he associated revenge as when you repaid wrongdoings that were done to you.

Interesting.

That meant...

“I do, though, have justice of my own to dish out,” Tommy hummed, and his gaze seemed more analytical then dangerous now, still glittering darkly. “That’s why I killed you today. Justice. And I am nowhere near done with you yet.”

“What are you going to do, kill me? Torture me like I did to you, like Wilbur does to me?” Dream grinned, imitating Tommy’s own dangerous smile. “Nothing you do to me will ever make me sorry for the things I’ve done, to you or otherwise. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do,” Tommy responded nonchalantly, seeming unfazed. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

Dream blanched, grin falling. This kid was throwing him all sorts of curveballs during his visit, and its only been a few minutes. “Wh—”

Tommy cut him off by leaning closer to the bars, his grin also falling and being replaced by a dark scowl, one that promised danger, promised _pain_. “You just gotta beg for mercy,” his voice was pitched low, hate burning in blue-gray eyes.

Dream jerked backward as if he’d been burned, stumbling away from the bars that separated them and wincing at the way the chains screeched along the ground with his quick retreat.

Tommy straightened up as if nothing happened, his face going back to passive, neutral, as he fiddled with the still bloodstained diamond dagger in his palm.

“There’s one thing you haven’t thought about in all of this,” Dream said firmly, as if he hadn’t just backed down from a scrawny teenager, one that used to kneel to _him_. “What are people going to say when they find out you killed me? The moment that blade sank into my neck, everyone was able to see that you’re the one who took my second life. Sapnap, George, Bad, Skeppy, Ant, Callahan? How do you think they’ll react when they find out their friend is down to one life?”

“I’m not concerned,” Tommy replied calmly. “Sam, Punz, what happened?”

Sam cleared his throat, taking a deep breath and staring passively at Dream. The older blonde had almost forgotten that there were other’s in the room, based on how they hadn’t moved or said a word the entire time.

“The prisoner became unruly during Tommy’s visit, and I believed that he was threatening Tommy’s life,” Sam’s voice and face held no emotion, but anger directed towards Dream glittered in his green eyes. “I stepped in to calm the situation down, in which the prisoner managed to put me in a chokehold using his chains and was threatening to end my life if he was not released.”

“Before I could intervene,” Punz continued, also passive and emotionless. “Tommy removed Sam’s sword from it’s sheath on his hip and killed the prisoner with it in order to free Sam.”

Dream stared at the three, anger and disbelief flooding through his veins. “You— you—” he stammered, his brain not able to form the right words. “You won’t get away with this! I’ll tell someone!”

“Who?” Tommy asked, his voice perfectly pleasant. “Who have you had as a visitor besides me and Tubbo?”

Dream fell silent, hating the way helplessness was taking over, hopelessness eating away at the anger and the disbelief being replaced with fear. He was _Dream_ , this was _his_ server, and he was... stuck.

It hadn’t really hit him until now.

No one had come to visit. Not Sapnap, not George, not Callahan, not Bad, or Skeppy, or Ant, or Drista, or Purpled. No one had come to see him. Because they didn’t _want_ to.

“Besides,” Tommy almost sounded sympathetic, but it was a false-sympathy, a mocking sympathy. “No one would believe you anyway.”

With that, the blonde turned his back to the cell, walking back towards the door. The motion made Dream snap out of it, just enough for him to surge forward to the bars again, anger filling his veins as he banged on the netherite so hard that it was painful.

“You won’t get away with this!” He roared, but Tommy didn’t turn around. Punz and Sam were turning their backs to him as well now, walking off with Tommy. “YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I WILL GET OUT OF HERE, AND YOU WILL BURN, TOMMYINNIT! I DON’T CARE HOW LONG IT TAKES! YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS! TURN AND FACE ME YOU _COWARD_!”

The teen still didn’t turn around, and Dream watched as Sam hit a button, and there was a groaning sound as the door started to close. His yells only became louder, in a desperate, rage-filled attempt to get them to turn around.

“DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM YOU _FUCKER_!” He screamed. “YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL STEAL YOUR LAST LIFE AWAY IN THE MOST PAINFUL WAY POSSIBLE! IT WILL TAKE HOURS! YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS! DON’T FUCKING WALK AWAY FROM ME—!”

The door sealed shut with a loud clang, effectively silencing his bellows from the three people who continued to walk away.

Dream continued to scream profanities and death threats, demanding, ordering Tommy to come back so they could have a fair fight. He promised their deaths, the deaths of everyone on the SMP. He swore bloody, destructive vengeance.

But no one was around to hear it.

**Author's Note:**

> R’s Twitter: [Rose126](https://mobile.twitter.com/Rose12610)  
> Eci’s Twitter: [Ecinue](https://mobile.twitter.com/ecinue_unicorn)  
> Eci’s Tumblr: [Ecinue-Unicorn](https://ecinue-unicorn.tumblr.com)  
> R’s Tumblr: [alwaysananxiousmess](https://alwaysananxiousmess.tumblr.com)
> 
> Trying out embedding links today, let’s see how well this works. 
> 
> This is the last installment of this series that we have planned! We’re glad you’ve liked it so far, and we hope you enjoy our other works as well. (Seriously, go check out Eci’s new fics: Ecinue) 
> 
> -R


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